In a tournament, various participants compete individually or in teams to determine which participant or team has the most skill at separate games. The degree of skill is usually evident by points scored, and in some games, handicaps can be accorded according to the proficiency of the players and/or the difficulty of the games. Until now, however, it was not reasonably possible to allow players of different kinds of games to enter the same tournament. As one of the advantages of the present invention, such a tournament is facilitated. In addition, individual player handicaps can be automatically stored and taken into account, and winners automatically declared and announced.
There have been in the past certain kinds of games which facilitated electronic reporting of scores to a central location, allowing a central manager to allocate prizes, as for example described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,302,010 issued Nov. 24th, 1981 to AMF Incorporated, which relates to an electronic bowling scoring system. However this system is restricted to use in a single bowling hall, in which the veracity of play of all of the bowlers can be observed by other participants in the bowling hall or on the team. However the system cannot be used where doubt exists who the actual player is. For example if a person has a private bowling alley with a score entry terminal connected to the system described in the aforenoted U.S. patent, it would not be possible to ensure that the person who is signed up to play the game in the tournament is actually playing, and therefore false score data could be entered. In addition, scores are entered into the score entry terminal manually, which also allows the possibility of cheating. While this of course would be unsportsmanlike, it could become very serious if a valuable prize is to be awarded for high score.
Due to the above and other problems, it has not been possible until now to provide large scale tournament playing with very diverse player locations. The present invention provides means for ensuring with a high degree of security that the person achieving the score is the assumed person who is playing.